Hi folks,
I came across this Soviet era shaska over the weekend and was wondering if I could get the opinions on its originality. It appears to be dated 1945 under the leather washer. What manufacturer is HM3 (I hope it isn't the cyrillic spelling of India or Pakistan!)?

"ИМЗ" stands for Instrumentalno-metallurgicheskiy zavod (IMZ), which is plant number 391 People’s commissariat of ammunition in city of Zlatoust. On April 16 1944 plant number 259 also known as Zlatoustovskiy instrumentalniy kombinat (ZIK) was split into two separate plants. In late 1946 both plants 259 and 391 were merged back together and mark restored back to ZIK.

Izevskiy meshinostroitelniy zavod (Izhmash) plant number 74 People’s commissariat of weapons never produced any blades, ever. 20 August 1942 split into two plants: one to manufacture rifles, carbines, and Berezin 12.7mm machine-guns; the other to manufacture anti-tank rifles, 'Nagant' revolvers, TT pistols and munitions; this second plant merged with plant number 524 according to SNK order number 2067 to form plant number 622 Izevskii mekhanicheskii zavod (Izhmekh);

Shashka in question is nice example of plant number 391 last quarter of 1945 production.